


Seeing Red

by CanonConvergence18



Series: Welcome to Harleyland: We have cookies! [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Heist, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:00:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28464948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanonConvergence18/pseuds/CanonConvergence18
Summary: Harley Quinn needs the help of the one and only Poison Ivy on a job for the Joker. Ivy gets tired of watching Harley suffer at the abusive clown's hands. Two powerful, but traumatized women just trying to make their way in Gotham City.
Relationships: Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy, Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Series: Welcome to Harleyland: We have cookies! [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659157
Comments: 17
Kudos: 61





	1. A clown, crocodile man, and ecoterrorist walk into a bar

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this fic in my head for a while now. It technically serves as a prequel to by other Batman fic, "In Darkest Knights, the Brightest Sparks." You don't need to have read that fic in order to follow this one, but it also wouldn't hurt. I hinted at Harley's prior relationship with Poison Ivy in that story, but I thought it'd be fun to flesh out how I imagined them getting together. I recently got into the Harley Quinn animated show, and it gave me all kinds of inspiration! I hope you all enjoy reading!

The Asylum was the best kept secret of the Gotham underworld. Named so that a slip of the tongue would call to mind the imposing mental institution on the outskirts of the city, the Asylum was actually a speakeasy; one of the only remaining places where Gotham criminals could gather in any measure of safety. Once upon a time there had been many such establishments where gang members, mob bosses, and eventually super villains could mingle freely. Those times were now commonly referred to as B.B.

Before the Bat.

One by one, they had all been whittled down by the Dark Knight’s crusade, leaving only the Asylum. The remaining mafias and super villains had pooled their resources to guard the little pub, cooperating on its defense in a way they had never managed to with any other endeavor.

After all, _everyone_ needs a place to get drunk.

And, occasionally, to do a little business without the fear of being violently murdered.

Gotham’s various super villains had developed such notoriety over the years that it was now almost impossible to meet anywhere in public. The Asylum had quickly become the most popular place to discuss collaborations.

Harley was on her fifth shot by the time Poison Ivy finally showed up, not really caring that it was only eleven in the morning. The Asylum was only open during the day, for obvious reasons, so it wasn’t like she could wait until night.

She wasn’t the only one either; there were a fair number of patrons already filling the dark, smoky room. A few of Penguin’s goons were playing pool while a couple mob types laughed boisterously at the bar. However, all noise stopped, and every eye turned to the door when Ivy stepped in. The ecoterrorist was a rare sight at the Asylum, even more so than the notoriously antisocial Riddler.

After a single, disdainful look around the room, Ivy shrugged off her overcoat, revealing her trademark green corset and tights.

“Hey, Ivy!” Harley called, waving enthusiastically from her booth.

The red-haired villainess cocked an eyebrow before setting off through the bar, her generous hips swaying. Despite the display, everyone with half a brain was watching Ivy’s hulking companion instead.

Shadowing Ivy and glaring at anyone who glanced his way was Waylon Jones, aka Killer Croc. Eight feet of pure muscle underneath a tough, scaly hide with claws and teeth to match his name, Croc was easily the most physically imposing person Harley had ever encountered. He’d been working as Ivy’s bodyguard for a couple years now, and rumor had it he took the job _way_ too seriously.

“Took you long enough, Red,” Harley griped as Ivy slid into the booth across from her. Croc, who wouldn’t have fit anyway, took up a position at her shoulder and turned his glare on Harley, who thoroughly ignored him. “I ordered you a cosmo, but I got bored and drank it.”

Ivy frowned. “I don’t drink alcohol, Harley. It’s poison.”

“I thought that was your thing? Is it Antidote Ivy now?” Harley snickered at her own joke.

Ivy rolled her eyes in irritation. “Can we cut to the chase? I’d rather not spend any more time in this cesspit than I have to.”

A passing waiter looked like he took offense at the “cesspit” comment, but a low growl from Croc dissuaded him from saying anything.

“Aww, don’t be a buzzkill, Ivy, when was the last time we got to hang out? Us girl villain’s gotta stick together, after all.”

“Then why don’t you see what the cat hooker is up to,” Ivy said. “Unlike the rest of you, I’m actually trying to accomplish something with my time. Now tell me what you want or I’m leaving.”

Harley sighed. It was always like this with Ivy; she took things way too seriously. “Fine! Mistah J’s workin’ on a new version of his laughin’ gas, but he’s having some trouble. We figured you might be able to help us out.”

“We?” Ivy asked skeptically.

Harley shifted in her seat. “Well I suggested it, but he thought it was a good idea too.”

“I’m sure.” Ivy held out a hand. “Do you have the formula?”

Harley reached into the neckline of her corset and, with some difficulty, extracted a folded bit of paper.

Ivy arched an eyebrow as she took the formula. “What’s with the new outfit anyway?”

“Like it?” Harley stood up and twirled excitedly, showing off the plunging corset, fluffy miniskirt, and tights, all in her trademarked red and black of course.

“Looks impractical,” Ivy remarked. “You must have trouble swinging a hammer without your tits popping out.”

Harley flung herself back into the booth and pouted. “You’re one to talk Red. Can you even see your toes over those things?”

“ _I_ don’t have to worry about smashing skulls,” Ivy replied. “That’s what _he’s_ for.”

Croc upped his scowl as if to let Harley know he’d be happy to smash _her_ skull in an instant. Harley just rolled her eyes.

“Whatever. Can you help us out or what?”

Ivy gave the formula a quick once over. “Yeah, I can fix this. But what’s in it for me?”

Harley shrugged. “Whaddya want? We hit up a bank last week; got a lotta spare cash.”

“I don’t need money!” Ivy looked incensed at the offer. “Do you know how many trees it takes to make that filthy paper?”

“Geez, fine, no money then, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Wait.” Harley squinted. “Can you even wear panties in that thing? I’ve always been curious.”

Ivy ignored her. “Word is you’re pretty good at heists. Do you think you could get me into Ace Chemicals?”

“Well, Mistah J’s the real mastermind,” Harley hedged. “You want me to see if he’s up for it?”

“No!” Ivy’s voice was sharp. “I’m not working with that maniac. You, me, and Waylon. That’s it. You help me get into Ace and I’ll help you fix your formula. Take it or leave it.”

Harley hesitated. A job like this would traditionally require a sizeable crew, especially for a place as secure as Ace. She wasn’t totally sure she could manage it with just two other people, even if one of them was Killer Croc. Then again, Joker had been getting real irritable about not being able to finish his new toxin. He’d probably be thrilled if she waltzed in with the solution…

“Alright, you got a deal,” Harley said. “But we’re gonna need to do some serious planning if it’s just the three of us. You got a base of operations in the city?”

Ivy’s eyes went narrow, as if she was debating whether or not to trust Harley with that kind of information. “Yes, I do,” she said eventually. “But if you or your clown boyfriend try to come after me, I will make you both wish you’d never been born!”

“Sheesh, lighten up,” Harley said, holding up her hands. “We ain’t got no beef with you, Red. You stay in your lane, we’ll stay in ours, fair?”

Ivy stared at her for another long moment before nodding. “Fine. Let’s get moving before this place makes me throw up.”

As they stood to leave, the waiter from before decided that was more insults than he could take and made as if to grab Ivy’s arm. The only warning he got was a rush of air before Croc’s enormous, clawed hand struck him hard enough to send him flying across the room. The angle of his neck when he landed suggested that he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. Or ever. Behind the bar, the proprietor groaned and hung his head.

Ivy didn’t even bother to look.

Harley let out a cackle as she followed the red-haired villainess and her alligator man.

This was gonna be fun!


	2. In and Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd originally planned to write this story entirely from Harley's POV, but I decided to bring Ivy into the mix as well. Let me know what you think!

If Ivy was honest with herself, she didn’t really want to be planning a heist with Harley Quinn.

If she was even more honest with herself, she didn’t want to be planning a heist with _anyone_. Period.

The whole heist thing was ridiculous. The media called idiots like Two-Face or Penguin “supervillains” but really they were just thrill seeking nutcases being chased by _more_ thrill seeking nutcases. The fact that one group of nutcases was supported by the police was just ridiculous. None of them _stood_ for anything, none of them had any meaningful _goals_. They just wanted to run around, shooting guns and blowing up buildings in the vain hope that the adrenaline would somehow make their dicks bigger.

In some regards, Harley was the worst of them all. Sure, her work as a psychologist had been both futile and self-serving, but at least it was _something_. She could have written books on the Arkham inmates, become a famous TV personality or something badass like that. Now she just ran around at the beck and call of that piece of shit clown, all in the name of “love.”

It made Ivy want to gag.

And then there was the fact that she was just so goddam _peppy_. When they got through the tunnel to the Asylum’s underground parking lot in the Narrows, she literally _squealed_ at the sight of their car.

“Holy shit!” she practically screamed. “This thing’s fuckin’ _huge_! I thought you were supposed to be savin’ the environment or something? I bet this monster gets, what, two miles to the gallon!”

Ivy’s temper, never under the best control, flared. “Well Waylon doesn’t exactly fit in a fucking Prius! Besides, we remodeled it to run off natural plant byproducts and oils.”

Harley made one of those annoying scrunched up faces and held up her hands. “Alright, jeez! You’re way too on edge, you know that Red? You need to relax, laugh a little.”

Ivy just ground her teeth and got in the passenger side. Of course Harley immediately got distracted by something else.

“Ooh, tinted windows, nice!” the clown said as she hopped in the backseat. “Course I bet you couldn’t get around that, huh? Not with a giant crocodile man behind the wheel; the police are probably lookin’ for that sorta thing, aren’t they? Hey, where’d you get the plates done? We keep tryin’ to find a new shop, but they’re all shit these days. Lost half a dozen guys last week cuz the plates and registration weren’t any good. It’s a fuckin’ nightmare, we didn’t used to have to deal with this kinda crap!”

The fact that neither Ivy nor Waylon responded to her incessant chatter didn’t stop Harley from bouncing around the back of the car, babbling in a high-pitched sing-song tone that was threatening to give Ivy a migraine. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat, trying her best to tune their passenger out. Why the fuck had Freeze picked _this_ goddam month to up and disappear?

Because the problem was, as much as she hated them, Ivy needed to pull off a heist. As skilled as she was, she was still one woman with precious few resources attempting some truly monumental tasks. There were chemicals and compounds that she couldn’t create herself. She’d put it off as long as she could, but she needed things that she could only find at the city’s largest chemical plant: Ace.

When she’d finally bowed to the inevitable, it had become a question of who to hire for the job. Freeze would have been ideal; he had the tech, the motivation, and had been hounding Ivy for years to help him find his cure. And best of all, he didn’t talk much.

But with that option off the table, she was left with precious few alternatives. Riddler was out; there was no way she’d make it more than five minutes without killing the annoying little fucker. Penguin and Two-Face didn’t have the skill for something this delicate, they’d just run in and shoot up everything she needed. On the other hand, Catwoman had the necessary skills, but it was a toss up whether she’d tip off Batman, or just leave Ivy for the cops.

That had really only left one option: The Joker. Or more specifically, his annoying girlfriend. Because regardless what she said, the criminal underworld knew the truth: Harley Quinn was the real brains behind Joker’s crew. Sure, he was in charge, he decided the _what_ , but when it came to the _how_ , it was all Harley.

To Ivy’s great irritation.

“Hey, can we make a stop first?”

Ivy bolted upright, spinning her head to see Harley’s manic, painted face mere inches from hers. She resisted the instinct to smash a bottle of poison in the other woman’s eyes.

“We can get supplies later,” she said shortly.

“Oh, come on, pleeeaaase?” Harley pleaded. “I promise it’ll really help with the job, and I’ll be fast!”

“Fine!” Ivy snapped. “Where do you need to go?”

Harley gave them an address in downtown Gotham, which made Ivy more than a little nervous. The darkness of their windows notwithstanding, Ivy preferred to avoid Gotham’s more crowded districts. Such as downtown. But it was a good chance to assess their new partner’s reliability before they got in too deep.

The building they pulled up to, however, was not what Ivy was expecting.

“Department of City Planning?” Ivy read off the front. “What the fuck do we need here?”

Harley didn’t answer. She was busy rolling down the backseat window facing the building, an unusually serious look on her face. She only opened the window about twelve inches, presumably to case the sidewalk.

“Okay, wait here,” she told Ivy and Waylon. “This should take exactly four minutes and twenty-three seconds. If I’m not back by five minutes, then I’m caught or dead and you’ll need to find yourself a new clown. Got it?”

Ivy and Waylon exchanged incredulous looks, although it was much more subtle on Waylon’s features. She nodded, confusion turning to curiosity.

Harley opened the door but paused as she was getting out. “And leave the window open!”

Then she was gone, skipping, literally _skipping_ into the Department of City Planning, Waylon and Ivy staring after her.

“Time her,” Ivy told Waylon.

Dutifully, her bodyguard set a timer on his phone, which looked tiny in his massive hand. “We can still find someone else,” he rasped quietly. “I could liaise with Riddler, you wouldn’t have to talk to him.”

Ivy shook her head. “Let’s see what happens first. Like she said, if she’s not back in five…”

They spent the next couple minutes watching the building intently, waiting for some sign of the disturbance or mayhem they were sure would come. And they weren’t disappointed. At three minutes and fifty-seven seconds, alarms started ringing. At four minutes and eight seconds, they heard the sound of muffled gunfire. At four minutes and fifteen seconds, the doors to the building flew open, and a red and black blur emerged, running faster than Ivy had ever seen a non-metahuman being move. That blur resolved itself into the figure of Harley Quinn, grinning like a madwoman, as she dove at the car window she’d left cracked. Against all reason, she soared through the narrow spaced, landing in the backseat and cackling her head off.

For a few precious moments, Ivy and Waylon could do nothing but stare at the psychotic woman in their backseat. Luckily, Waylon recovered first and took the car spinning out into the street and away from the building as fast as he could without attracting too much attention.

“What was my time?” Harley asked once she stopped laughing maniacally.

Ivy looked at Waylon’s phone, sitting on the console. “I’m not sure, four minutes, twenty seconds, maybe?”

“Yes, new record!” Harley pulled herself into a seat, looking triumphant.

“You’ve done that before?” Ivy surmised incredulously.

“Not in a while, but yep,” Harley nodded proudly. “Security’s even worse now than it was a couple years ago. Probably still shorthanded from dealin’ with Bane.”

For the first time, Ivy noticed that her arms were filled with long, rolled up papers.

“What the hell are those?” Ivy asked.

“Blueprints,” Harley replied cheerily as she started unfurling. “Let’s see, we got the Gotham Central Bank, don’t need that.” She crumpled up the blueprint and tossed it in the trunk. “Iceberg Lounge, nope. Ooh, Gotham Museum of Geology, I’m gonna hang on to that! Lotta cool gems in there. Aha!” She brandished one of the documents triumphantly. “Ace Chemicals!”

“You got the blueprints for Ace Chemicals?” Ivy asked in astonishment.

“Course I did. Ain’t no way we can do a job like this without some inside knowledge. Department of City Planning keeps _all_ blueprints. You know, for records and shit.”

Ivy continued to stare as Harley sorted through the rest of the blueprints she’d stolen, discarding most of them, but holding on to a few that apparently had items Harley wanted.

“Why’d you take so many?” she managed to say eventually.

“Cuz if Harley Quinn _only_ steals the plans for Ace Chemicals, they probably got a good idea I’m goin’ to Ace Chemicals. Now they’re gonna have to figure out which ones I took. And that’s not even countin’ the ones I burned!” She cackled again. “It’s gonna take ‘em _years_ to sort all that out!”

Ivy turned to look out the front of the car, leaving Harley to play with her papers. For a few minutes she couldn’t do anything but sit and wonder at the ease with which Harley had executed that little snatch and grab. She’d even _timed_ it. Within three seconds. Three. _Fucking_. Seconds.

Against her will, a smile began to spread over Ivy’s face.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.


	3. A hobbit hole means comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your wonderful response to the first couple chapters! We proceed with a look at Ivy's hideout!

Harley had always assumed that Ivy’s lair (weird word but it was hard to imagine Ivy in anything other than a dark, secretive cave or something) was outside Gotham City, somewhere in the wilderness. Surely a trip of at least a couple hours, plenty of time for Harley to browse through all the blueprints she’d stolen. Despite the cavalier front she’d put on, once Ivy and Croc’s attention had shifted, she put a lot of focus on deciding which ones to keep. Word hadn’t gotten out yet, but the last few jobs the crew had attempted went south pretty bad. Harley knew they needed more of an edge. Joker was trying to improve his toxin, but Harley was taking a more practical approach.

She became so engrossed in her work that she didn’t notice the smell at first; a strange funk that seemed to make the air heavy. Only once her nose started burning with an acrid odor she couldn’t identify did she finally take notice.

“You got a problem with your AC or some-” The words died in her mouth as she looked up for the first time in many minutes. What she saw out of the windows rendered her speechless, an unusual phenomenon.

The road they were on was even more dilapidated than the worst parts of the Narrows, dotted with missing chunks that put the word “pothole” to shame. On either side of the street stood what Harley could only describe as the skeletons of houses. They were all that same generic, mass construction type of places that screamed suburbia. Except it was clear no one had ever lived a single one of them. The paint was faded, mold and weeds creeping up the sides of walls, but the windows were all intact. The whole place was creepy and eerie.

And Harley had no idea where it was.

She glanced at the sun, but it hadn’t moved perceptibly. That meant they were still in Gotham. The question was where. Harley had thought she knew every inch of Gotham, from the ritzy homes up in Bristol all the way down to the skyscrapers of Old Gotham. She’d been everywhere, seen everything.

Except…

“Are we in the fuckin’ Acres?!” she exclaimed, looking around to see if there was something she could use to cover her mouth.

In the rearview mirror she saw Ivy smirk. “What’s wrong? I thought you liked hanging around toxic shit?”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Harley snapped. “Even Mistah J stays away from this place.”

“That’s because he’s a fake.” Ivy’s tone was derisive. “A pretender playing with little toys he barely understands. There’s nothing here that nature can’t protect against.”

Harley’s instinctive anger at anyone insulting her man was tempered by some much more practical concerns. “Well I’ll be sure to thank nature when I’m lyin’ in a hospital bed dyin’ of cancer!”

Ivy gave an exasperated sigh and popped open the console. She tossed a gas mask back at Harley, who immediately put it on.

“We’ll be there soon,” Ivy said. “I’ll inoculate you just like I did myself and Waylon.”

“Fuckin’ nutcase,” Harley muttered into the mask.

The Acres was legendary in Gotham City, a stunning disaster that the bureaucrats had managed to pull off without the help of a single supervillain. The land on which the Acres sat had been one of Gotham’s last remaining undeveloped parcels, protected by some century old city ordinance. A real estate developer who appeared shockingly legitimate had waged a public campaign to get the ordinance repealed and allow him to build affordable, high quality housing using the latest environmentally friendly technologies. The media had taken to calling the project “Green Acres” and support for the it got strong enough that the Mayor threw his weight behind the proposal. When the ordinance was repealed and the deal finally went through, the Mayor’s approval rating creeped up above fifty for the first time in years. The ceremony to break ground turned into the hottest celebrity gathering, even drawing such figures as Bruce Wayne. The houses went up in record time and commercials to entice prospective buyers started playing. It all sounded like the kind of good news that Gotham rarely got, the kind that was almost too good to be true.

Which, of course, it was.

Right as construction was wrapping up and mortgage agreements were being signed, an inspector made an unfortunate discovery. It was one he shouldn’t have ever noticed, given the normal requirements of his job. But this particular inspector happened to be the father of a very inquisitive, scientifically minded young girl. That girl had been saving her pocket money for months and had just bought a Geiger counter that she took with her everywhere. One morning, when her father dropped her off for school, she happened to leave the device in the backseat as she was getting out of the car. The inspector then went off to Green Acres for a final, almost ceremonial walk through.

The man was confused about the beeping sound that started once he got closer to the Acres and grew in frequency and volume the farther in he went. By the time he parked, the shrill noise was almost deafening. Of course, it didn’t take him long to find the Geiger counter, at which point he descended into an entirely appropriate panic. A panic that quickly spread, despite the city’s attempts to keep this discovery under wraps.

It turned out that some other city bureaucrat with a surprising amount of authority, had okayed the storage of several tons of toxic waste just outside the Acres a few years back. The whole thing had been kept mostly off the books in order to avoid public alarm of the very sort that occurred when it broke the news. Almost every single one of the supposedly safe containers had ruptured, spilling all manner of radioactive material, chemicals, and other nasty shit into the ground. The area on which the Acres had been built got the worst of it. Further tests showed tainted soil, water, and air that made the Acres completely unlivable.

It wasn’t just the Acres either. A decent portion of the city surrounding the Acres had to be evacuated too. The cost had been enormous, not to mention the public fallout. The only thing that had kept the city from total financial collapse was a massive influx of cash from the Wayne Corporation. They removed all the toxic waste, helped with the relocations, even tried some experimental tech to clean up the area. It worked a bit, but not enough to make the Acres viable. The whole place was condemned, and the media had taken to calling it Toxic Acres. Even the most dangerous and desperate criminals in Gotham avoided the place.

Except Ivy, apparently.

Harley continued muttering to herself about crazy plant ladies right up until they reached the aforementioned “there.” Once again, Ivy managed to surprise Harley. Her “lair,” was nothing like the dark, scary cavern of man-eating plants that Harley had been imagining. In fact…

“Jesus Christ, it’s like a fuckin’ Hobbit hole!” Harley cackled. Somehow, Ivy had taken the second floor off one of the generic looking houses and built up hills of earth on every side except the door. The door itself was covered in delicate green vines with purple ivies. The earthen sides of the hill were dotted in flowers of an extraordinary variety, more color than Harley had ever seen in one place before.

A soft hissing sound caused Harley to look away from the window. At first, she was concerned that her comment had somehow offended Croc, but with another shock she realized that the hulking, scaly man was laughing. It was quiet laughter, but laughter nonetheless.

Ivy, meanwhile, was somehow scowling at the both of them. “So I liked Tolkein when I was a kid, fucking sue me! The plant cover keeps us from coming up on thermal scans and it masks chemical emissions. I don’t want a fucking Bat crashing through my ceiling again!”

“You don’t think he might fly over in that fancy plane of his and wonder why _one_ patch of the Acres is all pretty?” Harley pointed out.

“It’s not the only one. I’ve planted nearly a dozen patches like this all over the Acres. He’ll just think plant life is recovering. Like you said, even crazy people don’t want to live here.”

Not a bad point, Harley admitted, although she worried that Ivy was underestimating the Bat’s paranoia. That was okay though, it wasn’t like Harley was moving in. She’d just be here long enough to complete the job. They only had to avoid vigilante attention until then.

Croc pulled them into a similar structure connected to the main house and killed the engine. As her eyes adjusted to being out of the sun, she realized the little garage (for want of a better word) was illuminated by the soft glow of plants she didn’t recognize. There were no workbenches or equipment, but she spotted several drums of what she presumed was the oil that powered the car.

“Come on,” Ivy said briskly, hopping out. “You can take off the mask, the air’s clean in here. I’ll get you inoculated in a minute.”

Harley followed Ivy along a similarly lit tunnel. “Okay, so I get that you don’t get too many people knockin’ on the door out here, but seriously? Why live in a place where you gotta take a whole buncha meds to survive?”

“All modern humans need medicine to survive,” Ivy replied disdainfully. “You take antihistamines to deal with pollution, vitamins to counter your horrible diets, antidepressants to cope with the meaninglessness of your lives. And you spend the whole time pretending there’s nothing wrong with any of it. At least here we can be honest about what we’re protecting ourselves from.”

“Sheesh, melodramatic much?” Harley said, albeit quietly enough that Ivy couldn’t hear.

By this point, Harley had a sense of what to expect from Ivy’s decorating style. She clearly wasn’t the emo psycho everyone thought. True to expectation, the inside of the house was shockingly cozy. All the furniture was made with what Harley would have bet her life was driftwood. The chairs and couches were upholstered in materials she didn’t recognize but had a distinctly plant-like feel about them. Instead of paintings or knick-knacks, the walls were adorned with yet more flowers woven in such a way as to form abstract images of their own.

It was a beautiful place, unlike any other Harley had ever seen, or even imagined.

Harley only realized she’d stopped walking when Ivy cleared her throat from across the room, next to another door. “Are you done staring? You’re not here for a sleepover.”

“Well, technically I am,” Harley said, although she started moving again. “You didn’t think we were gonna break in tonight, didja? This might take a while.”

Ivy made a sour face. “I know. So let’s not prolong it.”

“And you better have a change of clothes for me, I didn’t bring an overnight bag!”

Ivy gave an aggravated sigh. “You can borrow some of mine. It’ll be better than that leather death suit you’re wearing.”

The room Ivy led her to was made up like a hotel room, with blankets, towels, and toiletries all folded up neatly on the end of the bed. Harley couldn’t help laughing when she saw it.

“You had this all planned or something? Or do you keep it like this all the time in case Catwoman drops by for a girl’s night?”

“It was Waylon’s idea,” Ivy said, looking embarrassed. “He thought it might go this way and said it would be rude not to be prepared.”

“Mr. freakin’ Hospitality,” Harley joked, looking around the room. “He should see if the Royal is hirin.’”

Ivy just rolled her eyes. “Clothes are in that cupboard, there’s a grotto just down the stairs with hot water. Wash that silly makeup off and meet me in the main room so we can get this started already.”

The red-haired supervillain stalked off, leaving Harley to see what kind of wardrobe she was going to be working with for the foreseeable future. When she opened the cupboard, she dissolved into laughter again.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little taster to get us started! I don't anticipate this will be full novel length, but we'll see! Also, it's worth mentioning that this is my first F/F fic, so please don't hesitate to provide feedback on how I write our two main ladies.


End file.
